What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: Poetry Book (Page 8 of 9)

My Love

I have hardly but stood in your glow
My Love,
Before the darkness falls upon me
And I begin to stare aimlessly into Nothingness.

There are but few things to comfort me
My Love,
Yet as I inhale the chill of thoughts born yesterday,
You are the feint fragrance of hope that warms my soul.

Though as dark and uncomfortable as I am
My Love,
I do find you the Light and you the Warmth,
That brings me back to Joy’s reality.

Who am I to hide these things
My Love?
Does the Sun pretend to be the moon?
Or the Sea pretend to be the cause of its mighty tide?

The answers to all of this
My Love,
Is found in the joy of your simple touch,
In the shiver that touch shoots through my Soul.

I cannot pretend to be anything but
My Love,
Lost in a place devoid of all you are,
Yet found in the knowledge that you are not that.

And torn between the two.

Such an easy choice it seems
My Love,
Yet nothing has been so hard as to choose
Between who I am and who I wish to be.

Into your hands I come
My Love,
Never to be parted as the fault lines fade,
We are, we share, we give birth to
Love.

©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

That is Love

When you stand alone on a beach,
And you feel the breeze,
And the water tickling your toes,
That is love.

When you stand as just another part of a crowded beach,
And you feel the breeze as the water tickles your toes,
And you feel contentment in the multitude around you,
That is love.

When you walk among the trees,
And you can hear their leaves rustle,
While  basking in the warmth of the sun,
That is love.

When you open your heart to another,
Regardless of who he is or what he has done,
And you stand in complete absence of judgment,
That is love.

When you stand upright like a blade of grass,
Struggling for nothing but enjoying all you are,
Embracing the ground, the sky and the space between,
That is love.

When you are angry or shudder in fear,
When you hate those not like you,
That part of you who sees this,
That is love.

Love is the rain and the sun,
Love is the silence and the sound,
Love is the patience and the impatience,
Love is the seer and the blind,
Love is yin and yang and the space between them.

So when you cry out loud for it all to end,
Or smile in unbridled ecstasy,
When you fail or succeed or sin or forgive,
That is love.

Peace. 

©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Can’t

Can’t you hold me for just one moment more?
Can’t you tell me that I am needed,
That I am wanted, That I am as great as you?
Can’t you find your greatness in me as I have in you?

“I can’t my love.
I can’t see that you are needed,
I can’t see that I want you, I can’t be but numb in your arms.  
I can’t see that you are great, only that I am greater without you.”

Can’t you touch me one more time?
Can’t you comfort me in this, my hour of need?
Can’t you see that I am desperate, That I am completely lost?
Can’t you find your way as you lead me to my own?

“I can’t my love.
I can’t stand the feel of you or the sight of you,
I can’t find the means of comforting that which you are,
I can’t be found as long as you are the veil that covers me.”

Can’t you just forgive me of my sins,
Can’t love me so I sin no more?
Can’t you see that I have no quit in me, That I will lose?
Can’t you rejoice in the effort that is made in love?

“I can’t my love,
I can’t forgive what I can’t forgive nor indulge in some Love Boat fantasy,
I can’t see anything but a loser,
I can’t rejoice in that which can only fail.”

Can’t you?
I can’t.
Won’t you?
I won’t.
The end.

 
©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Too Late for Him

There is such a valley between us,
That once flowed a river of love and complexity,
Teeming with potential and abounding life,
Continuing the promise of surprising simplicity.

Ghosts now wonder where the living once stood,
Reminding themselves of their own importance,
Playing the game as if they invented the challenge,
Preying on time as if the next second were a guarantee.

The valley does hold in it the key but not in it the reality,
On one side there is a wall, 
Built by sorrowed hands and angry thoughts,
Maintained as if by some majestic memory.

On the other is a barren wasteland,
Waiting for the dam to break although not believing in the possibility, 
Remembering patiently the paradise that once flowed around it,
Trying hard not to forget that this hell is not all there is.

Has the ground become so dry that the touch of water sickens it?
Has the parched earth become so thirsty as to not remember being satisfied?
Do the darkened grasses so love their suffering as to not wish it all away?
To what, if anything, would the crazed blades do to become themselves again?

Again the valley does hold in it the key but not the reality.
It longs for the water being held from it but craves the dryness it now is.
It does not seem to wish what was to become what is,
It wishes what is to become what was in something new, something new, something new.

So off I go as a bird fleeing the burning bush,
No longer wanted to be what is or what was…but what will be.
Perhaps this valley does not want me anymore, perhaps I not it,
Perhaps the revulsion I cause of the ground around me sickens me as well.

I have died, more than once,
I have seen the world through tears and through smiling eyes,
I have tasted the salt of my heart and the fear of my mind,
Enough to know that one cannot live on dry bread alone.

So what to quench my thirst on this barren plain around me?
I look to the dam and simply say “fuck it”,
I look to the wasteland and say “fuck you too”,
I look to the sky and know that is the answer.

So begins the struggle to climb to my life’s highest peak,
Weathered feet and leathered hands long for something to hold,
Tired eyes see nothing as tired ears hear echoes from the past,
Calling out yet causing no pause in the ascension.

Alone I stand on one mountaintop overlooking that which is below,
I see across the vastness of what is yet another summit calling out to me,
I reach out to the promise of what could be but fall back again,
Such is the expanse, never seen as so vast until now as I try to bridge it.

I have seen the promised land but know in my heart I shall never kiss it.
Gone is the chance to live it, to die upon it, to become one with it for eternity.
For it plays me as surely as I play it, a game of hide and seek to which there is no winner,
Until the end when both are called the champion.

“He was such a good man” the valley will say,
“He did all he could to sew good seeds” the mountain will say,
“He always tried to be the best he could be” the sky will proclaim,
“Too late for him” say the worms on their feast, “Too late for him.”

©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Dream

Dream for me my love,
Calm down the anger in my mind,
Find me shade from the sun that burns me,
Accept me in my weakness and in my strength.

Take from me all you need my love,
Allow me to calm the anger in your mind,
And shade you from the sun that would burn me instead,
Allow me to accept your weakness and rely on your strength.

Accept me for what I am,
And I will accept you for what you are,
We can give ourselves to each other,
Or fail to fulfill our promise to eternity.

Dream this dream together,
Or create a nightmare in its place,
Decide the now is better than the yesterday,
And the promise of tomorrow is brighter than a million rules to get us there.

To the “we” we decide simply is,
To the “us” we forgo the “what should be”,
To the unending voices that say we shoudn’t be,
We shall simply dream.

 ©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

The Changes Love Has Made in Me

I so wish that you could see,
The changes Love has made in me,
Into this world I was born anew,
Conceived by Love first found in you.

Darkness truly helped me find,
The sunshine that now lights my mind,
For what was once a spec of light,
Has now restored a blind man’s sight.

I thank you here through art and pen,
And beg of you to live for Now…not then,
Know me now so you can see,
The changes Love has made in me.

©2010 Thomas P. Grasso All Rights Reserved ☮ ℓﻉﻻ٥ ツ

Simply (October 29, 2009)

Like as if a pebble through still waters,
Awareness ripples through the story of my life,
Seeking to see beyond that which is the illusion of reflection,
Slowly defining that which is beneath the surface.

As though the seeker and not the sought,
The truth that ripples through the delusions of stillness,
To allow true stillness to be, to allow no distortions between
This and that, here and there, then and now.

That which is in the Deep has become the here and now,
That which was the surface slowing sinks into the Abyss,
To feel, to Be, is to be numb and to Be not,
To be there is to know what it is to be here.

To have is to realize what it is to have not,
To see is to know certain blindness, to be bad is to know what goodness is,
To seek is to know no search, to cry is to know pure bliss,
To hate is to know love and to lie is to know truth.

I am..

Not simply as some thing, but as all things.

I am…

Not simply as God but as my mind’s Creation.

I am…

Not as what I seek to be but as what you have made me.
You, the other, the same, my Creator as I am surely yours.
For what am I if not what I am in your mind,
And what are you if not what you are in my mind.

Good, bad, kind, mean, right, wrong,
What can it be if not me? For you cannot exist
If I do not exist, you cannot be if I do not make you so,
And I am just a figment of my imagination as you are yours, and we each other’s.

You are truth in all that you are because you are truth in all that you are not.
You are the bane of the existence to that which loves that you are.
You are to experience that which you were not, in order that you may finally be.

You are because you were not and because of that you will be.

Simply.

This Mind

Alone I fall but the morrow comes,
And aye such tenderness escapes the lot of me,
I am lost or so it seems,
Beyond the capacity of this mind to see.

Once the sound of music pained,
The look of a trampled man never gave me pause,
And yet such burden borne on me,
Was this mind’s own rigid, frightful cause.

For hate, dislike, lost and found,
Are but visions of fantasy like flags unfurled,
It’s true nothing in this dream has changed,
Except how I, this mind, see this world.

Into the Rain

Such pity poor does Nature show
To those she must endure,
To be free alive beyond what minds contrive,
Is her destiny for sure.

These eyes can see so easily,
Through panes of weathered glass,
Nature’s plan to shake off this man,
Or have his ego shunned en masse.

Such tears have formed throughout the years,
Now come pouring from the sky,
And through this weathered window pane,
Comes the understanding why.

This box is sealed with mental locks,
She offers me the key,
With pain assumed by us insane,
We create all reality.

This box is why I can stay so dry,
And absent of her pain,
But through that door there is much more,
So I walk Into the Rain.

Through that door into the light, from the confines of darkness into the freedom from it I walk. Unsteadily, as if walking for the first time, I take my first step beyond what I know into the Rain. Why does such pure water feel so dirty? Why does the chill course through my body as if I am feeling life for the very first time? I stumble a bit, unsure of my balance as I venture outward, but somehow I realize that the more I seem to venture from the confines that held me, the more I seem to venture outward, the more I venture inward. This Rain, as it cascades down my now bare skin onto the Earth that is now part of me, is bringing me alive as if for the very first time.

We are but one,
One body, one soul, one part of Creation,
We are all part of the same Sea,
And in this existence we share,
We are all but teaspoons from this Sea,
And surely one day we will all return to Her.
Our spoons may look different,
The bowls may be larger or smaller,
The handles may be ornate or plain,
But it is not the spoon that matters,
For it is just a vessel, a distraction from the Sea.

I realize that as much as our egos seek to separate us from all that is, we are not separate from any of it. Although ego provides us with physical differences we are not different except in our perception of the physical. Although our minds offer us borders from which to divide ourselves, we are not different. As the mud runs through my toes I realize that somewhere someone is also allowing the mud to run through their toes. The same Earth, the same air, the same sky, the same Rain, the same emotion, all is the same but the vessel that carries the Sea. In the Sea we share a Oneness and the same purpose, and it is the purpose of ego to have us forget the Sea and to focus on the vessel that carries it. In this sense, the battle is not between “good” and “evil”, but between awareness and ego.

So, with arms outstretched and eyes focused on the sky, I walk into the Rain.

It Is Love

She reaches me in places I have never been reached,
Filling my being with Light,
Surrounding my soul with the essence of Love,
Driving me to heights never achieved.

She touches me in ways I have never been touched,
I can feel her near me even when she is out of sight,
I can sense her around me even when she is not near,
Sensing in all that which she is to me.

How can I explain the unexplainable?
How does one describe that which has no description?
It is just as it should be, such beauty surrounds,
It is so purely all that need be – it is Love that is me.

I find her in the Holy half of me,
Softly being there to share the Light,
A part of me as surely as I am part of it,
The beginning of life and the end of fear.

When such demons invade the other half of me,
She is there, the light to defeat such darkness,
The sound of silence that instills such grace in me,
The view of eternity from inside the abyss.

She is not me, but she has discovered me,
And in this I am utterly devoted,
For peace and love have removed anger and fear,
It is simply meant to be, It is Love she has found in me.

Once you feel pure Love it is all you wish to feel,
The darker half of you cowers in its presence,
You even feel the sunshine in every raindrop,
You feel the warmth in every snowflake.

Once you live in pure Love it is the only life you choose,
You feel joy in the challenges that befall you,
Happiness finds you even in the worst of pain,
You open your heart to what is, not what was or will be.

You see beyond the confines of an evening sky,
The void that allows the stars to be,
You find the light in the darkness in which you stand,
And when you smile you are free, It is Love that you see.

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